Friday, June 9, 2017

The American Catastrophe Paul Craig Roberts

The American Catastrophe

The American Catastrophe
Paul Craig Roberts
This is my quarterly call for your financial support. Remember, this is your website.
This website was launched 5 years and 4 months ago on New Year’s Eve, 2011. Here is the inaugural column: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2011/12/31/the-outlook-for-the-new-year/ The inaugural column remains an accurate description of the American Catastrophe.
According to AWeber, the service that sends out the announcements of
new postings, 1,840 notices of new postings have been sent during the 5
years and 4 months. That comes to 345 per year or practically one per
day.
This is a heavy workload. It explains why I cannot respond to the
many requests to read and comment on the books, articles, flash drives,
and solutions to problems that you send to me, provide advice,
participate in an event as an activist or speaker, or grant every
interview request. I can write for you, or I could set up as a
financial adviser, or as an editor and literary agent, or I could go on
the speaking circuit, but I cannot do all of these things.
In the United States, indeed, in the Western world generally, those
parts of the rule of law that protected liberty have collapsed. I have
told the story many times, as has John Whitehead (see, for example, http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/06/07/think-free-american-constitutional-protections-read/ ).
As Larry Stratton and I documented in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions,
the transformation of law from a shield of the people into a weapon in
the hands of the government began with chasing after devils, such as
gangsters, drug dealers, child abusers, and terrorists. The protective
features of the law were cut down in order to more easily convict those
targeted. The pursuit of devils was expanded by the leftwing’s Identity
Politics and its creation of hate speech, hate crimes, and now thought
crimes. As Gilad Atzmon wrote in his just published book, Being In Time, ”The freedom to think openly and speak clearly are but nostalgic concepts.”
Many Americans, perhaps most of them, still confuse patriotism with
support for the government, at least in the realm of “national
security,” and not with defense of the US Constitution. The liberals and
the leftwing are mainly concerned with inventing new rights in the
Constitution for “victim groups” as defined by Identity Politics. These
new rights, of course, cancel out rights guaranteed by the Bill of
Rights that was incorporated into the Constitution as Amendments. For
example, the right of a preferred minority not to be offended cancels
out the freedom of speech. While the government has destroyed habeas
corpus and due process, the leftwing has destroyed freedom of
expression. Together they have given us a police state.
The accountability of the US government has also been lost to
powerful private interests. Here is what former CIA official John
Stockwell has to say: “It is the function of the CIA to keep the world
unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate, so
we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms.”
After managing Washington’s deceptive participation in the Angolan
War and serving as a CIA paramilitary officer in the Congo and Vietnam,
and being awarded the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit, Stockwell
resigned because of his concern about the methods and results of the
CIA’s secret wars. He wrote In Search of Enemies and appeared on the TV program, 60 Minutes
where he revealed that CIA director William Colby and National Security
Adviser Henry Kissinger had systematically misled Congress about the
CIA’s secret operations. The CIA retaliated with a lawsuit that drove
Stockwell into bankruptcy and then dropped the lawsuit.
Stockwell got off easy compared to latter day whistleblowers, such as
John Kiriakou who was sent to prison for telling the truth despite the
whistleblower protection laws, another indication that America is ruled
by power and not by law.
The indifference of law schools, bar associations, federal courts,
Congress, and the American population to the police state practices
that now characterize the US government is evidence that liberty no
longer exists in the United States.
Despite the massive evidence, many, probably most, Americans still
cannot believe that their government would intentionally do anything
wrong. Yes, mistakes happen, but we must not throw out the baby with
the bathwater.
This insouciant attitude, which defines the American population,
explains why Americans prefer to dismiss scientists, experts, and
truth-tellers as “conspiracy theorists” than to accept that their
government is guilty of false flag attacks. The gullible and naive
population holds on to this absurd belief despite the complete
documentation of Operation Gladio, Operation Northwoods, the Gulf of
Tonkin fake incident, and so on. One of the most frustrating
experiences is the American who says, “If there was a conspiracy,
someone would have talked.” Yes, of course, they do talk, and it has no
effect whatsoever.
For example, Israel’s attack 50 years ago today on the USS Liberty,
which killed 35 American sailors and wounded 174, is still an official
coverup despite the complete and total exposure of the attack by Admiral
Tom Moorer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Admiral
Merlin Staring, judge advocate general of the US Navy, James Akins,
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Genaral Ray Davis, assistant commandant of
the US Marines, Captain Ward Boston, one of the US naval officers
ordered to produce the cover up, by every surviving member of the USS
Liberty’s crew, and by testimony of Israeli pilots involved in the
attack on the USS Liberty. All of this talk had no effect on the
official coverup, which remains the official word.
The same is true for the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert
Kennedy. The evidence is conclusive from eye witnesses, films,
autopsies, and expert testimony that the assassinations of JFK and RFK
were conspiracies.
As for 9/11, more than one hundred first responders (fireman and
police) and WTC maintenance personnel who were in the twin towers have
testified that they heard and experienced multiple explosions inside the
towers before barely escaping with their lives. Maintenance personnel
have testified that the first explosions were in the sub-basement before
the plane hit the tower. Demolition experts have testified that the
buildings were without any doubt brought down by controlled demolition.
Three thousand architects and engineers have said that the official
story is impossible. Independent scientists have published their
findings that the residue of the towers contains reacted and unreacted
nano-thermite. But all of this talk has had no effect on the official
coverup. The experts are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” a term
that the CIA introduced into political discourse to discredit those who
exposed the coverup of President Kennedy’s assassination.
Everytime I hear someone say “someone would have talked” when in fact
legions did talk, my hope for my country ratchets downward. If you
want me to keep confronting the insouciance and ignorance that are
leading to disaster, you must support this site.
The remaining beleaguered forces for good have, it seems, arranged a
hearing on June 14 in the House of Representatives for the re-enactment
of Glass-Steagall, the repeal of which caused the 2007-08 financial
crisis that had to be bailed out by US taxpayers and the Federal Reserve
and that has left America with an economy essentially dead in the
water, although covered up with false jobs and unemployment reports.
Possibly I will be providing written testimony to the congressional
hearing, which would be my 31st testimony before Congress, quite an
achievement for a person who, according to the mysterious PropOrNot
website, is a “Russian agent.”
In the event that I don’t post much between now and then, you will
know that I am working on my testimony. In the meantime support this
site. In America today, telling the truth is the surest way to having
your character assassinated. I am using up my life in constant conflict
with power that in my estimation may in fact be mightier than the pen.